Your Right to Know

WASHINGTON — As the Senate gets ready to debate the details of a broad U.S. immigration bill, a
group of House lawmakers still is struggling to write its own legislation, hung up in part over
guest-worker programs sought by businesses.

Programs allowing employers in high-tech, agriculture, construction and other industries to hire
foreign workers also were a stumbling block for senators who introduced a separate immigration bill
last month.

In the end, the four Republicans and four Democrats in the Senate “Gang of Eight” incorporated
into their bill a deal reached between the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The House immigration group, which has been negotiating largely in secret for nearly four years,
is moving closer to an agreement and hopes to unveil an immigration bill in the next few weeks,
said several lawmakers and aides.

Two congressional aides familiar with the talks said the size and details of the guest-worker
program were among the outstanding issues for House lawmakers.

The Senate bill includes caps on the number of foreign workers that businesses could hire and
requirements for certain wage levels. Businesses would like larger guest-worker programs and fewer
restrictions on wage levels.

Some Republicans in the House group are sympathetic to those concerns, while Democrats object to
upsetting what they see as a balance on the guest-worker provision painstakingly negotiated by
business and labor during the drafting of the Senate bill.

In interviews this week, two Republicans in the House group, Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida
and John Carter of Texas, said the lawmakers were close to an agreement.Over the past six weeks,
the four Democratic and four Republican lawmakers have met daily for two to three hours when
Congress has been in session.

When lawmakers left a week ago for a break, Carter said the House group had two remaining issues
to resolve when they return to Washington next week.